Gain Disguised as Loss

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“Can’t Outsmart Dogma”

“Look, there’s a lot of reasons why I hate myself — being Jewish isn’t one of them,” Stewart told the reporter. “So when someone starts throwing that around, or throwing around you’re pro-terrorist, it’s more just disappointing than anything else. I’ve made a living for 16 years criticizing certain policies that I think are not good for America. That doesn’t make me anti-American. And if I do the same with Israel, that doesn’t make me anti-Israel.

You can’t outsmart dogma!

If there is something constructive in what they’re saying, hopefully I’m still open enough … to take it in and let it further inform my position. But I’m pretty impermeable to yelling. As soon as they go to, ‘Your real name is Leibowitz!’ that’s when I change the channel.”

— Josh Marshall (via Talking Points Memo)

This is the overwhelming issue facing any thinking person (mental activity is not proof of thinking). How do you deal with the “dogma” of others without resorting to ideological dogma yourself?” i ask myself that question daily (several times most days). Here my best hope lies in what my teacher Ed Friedman (Rabbi by the way) taught many through Family Systems (Bowen) Theory. The best contribution a thinking person can do is focus on their own their own functioning, working to maintain a “non-anxious presence” in the face of the dogma of chronic anxiety. How to “do” the non-anxious presence gig?

Begin by reading and inwardly digesting Richard Rohr’s teaching on Non-dual thinking. It can be found on his website https://cac.org/ More about non-dual thinking soon.